Council estate capitalist

Reading the document the administrators put out they highlight that LCF would need to make between 44% and 19% a year (depending on ISA length) return in order to pay investors back in full. Even Madoff didn't profess to be able to generate that level of return! "Bondholders are concerned that:" "The Bondholders believed that their money was being lent to a wide portfolio of UK small and medium sized enterprises (‘SMEs’) but they now find that it has been lent to a small number of complex businesses with substantial risk profiles and which are often dependent on foreign and/or exotic (such as oil & gas) assets" "that there are corporate transactions involving the Borrowers and subBorrowers which involve companies with similar names, frequent name and accounting date changes, Companies House strike off notices and the same individuals"

These seminars are formulaic in their approach and use all the same guff that's been used to sell rubbish seminars/courses for decades. 1.Put your hands up if you want to be rich etc, get them to say yes to the first few questions. 2.Followed by a "I used to be like you" tale of how they went from nothing to something. 3. Various activities designed to get you into the "mindset of success". high fiving your partner etc. 4. Lecture on how not to be a quitter, say yes to opportunities, don't hang out with "losers" who aren't in the game. Don't be afraid of failure because you'll never succeed. 5. Give them an opportunity to prove they have the "success attributes" taught in step 4 by selling them the next course/seminar.

Wow I didn't realise it paid close to 6% interest back then, 90% receiving more than they paid in interest!. What a cushy life. I guess reducing the interest rate down was stage 1 of reducing demand for/cost the benefit. Stage 2 was turning it into a loan.

Up to £5220 a year assuming a £200,000 mortgage under current system. repayable with interest of 1.5% a year. I don't think the takeup is very high though. Signing a long document giving the DWP a second mortgage against your home goes against the grain for many.

Having a read of the documents now. They took a £5.2 million hit labelled as "restitution of trust funds" arising from the lettings business. I assume these are tenant deposits. I'm not an accountant but taking this hit implies they booked this as revenue in a previous year. Having a further look, this news isn't completely terrible for Countrywide, Providing the £218+ million of "exception items" are really exceptional and aren't just operating costs disguised as one off losses.

Debtenhams is effectively worth 0, unless they can get out of their lease obligations with a CVA. And even then it would probably require a debt-for-equity swap that would dilute the current shareholders to almost 0. The 2021 bonds are trading at just over half their face value.

This was posted on a property trader facebook group, First few replies were suggesting that it presented a great opportunity to stock up for pence in the pound from the administrators.

It's bad that until I saw that you mentioned Northampton I thought this was my local county council, Who have also taken a bath on a dodgy football ground deal, Only instead of empty offices Shropshire council has 2 almost empty shopping centers it purchased in a 3 for the price of 3 deal last year.

I know a fair few people who say and like to think they work in finance/insurance but in reality they are just answering the phones or being an admin assistant but the higher ups have given them a meaningless job title in lieu of a pay rise I wonder what the guy in the article studied.

Nope, only connection is my deep desire to see Mr & Mrs Fungus in a HMO in the bad part of Birmingham.

Pmsl, Nathan has just caught a rabbit, And his girl is going to skin/gut it (Lucky girl)

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/skint-britain-friends-without-benefits/on-demand/68038-001 M&S Ready meal hot out of the oven, Time for some poverty porn courtesy of Channel 4 Anyone seen it?

https://thetab.com/uk/2019/02/14/the-uks-weirdest-vice-chancellor-has-just-resigned-and-nobody-knows-why-92410 I'd need a pretty solid reason to leave a £350k job. He is the third member of the management to leave recently + another 3 more senior people left when he resigned.

Assuming those acronyms don't mean something else, What the hell are MSE users doing buying an HMO... That being said I did meet a (really nice) former teacher, caricaturist that had purchased a HMO in Birmingham.

Very creative, so I wonder how many other uni's do similar things to jazz up the numbers. We'll soon be seeing desperate uni's doing sale and leaseback etc to ease cashflow, if they aren't already doing this. The Ofs have said they won't bail out uni's but last year loaned one 900k because they couldn't get through summer. Very troubling times ahead.

Ah yes they will be able to hire a "fully qualified CCIE" for the same wage as a shelf stacker.

Idiot management is putting it politely, They sell telecoms solutions and the business is very sales-oriented full of used car salesmen in flashy cars with a cold call script that begins "Our records show your phones are due for an upgrade"

It's funny that this topic would come up, My friends just finished studying IT/networks at college so I was looking on the jobsites for him and there's a local company advertising what is effectively 2nd/3rd line network engineer, Must have degree, must have 3 years experience. Pay: £18k Bunch of jokers, It's been listed/reposted for 3 months and they've actually been interviewing people with no formal IT work experience because they're the only people who apply.

Reading the article it looks like they *only* lost £273 million this quarter, The other £3.1bn was an accounting loss rather than cash out of the door. But that's still a billion pounds a year loss, for a car company. When did 1 billion become so insignificant.

I watched this sell in the auction yesterday, First bid was £10 The only decent income is the car park let to the council on a long lease at £70k, The other rent is either from old leases that expire in 2020/2021 or from individual tenants who are in arrears/can leave anytime. The only way I can see of making money from the investment is dodgy asset striping, either hive off the car park into a separate entity or lease the non-producing parts of the centre to a shell company which then goes bust with the rates/utility bills. I personally don't think retail is fully dead, People will still go for a kebab after a night out. But I wouldn't invest until it hits rock bottom and the only way is up.

I can see the incentive if you're definitely going to get the 37.5 hours, if the travel costs are low, It's £82 + the chance to be promoted. But the reality for many is it's not guaranteed hours, Agencies that send you home early, high travel costs, The paperwork/cash flow issues that come with signing on/off benefits. I can see why some people don't bother. Say Jake from the article only gets 20 hours a week, I've worked out he'll be better off by £20.71 a week before travel costs.

From a facebook property investor group today: "Wow..Anyone else at BM auctions today. Lot after lot failed to sell with bidding opening often 15pct less than guide and those lots that sold struggled much past guide. Most surprising was smaller stock in North getting overlooked. This tells me investors are very nervous about Brexit uncertainty..." Anyone here watch today's auction?

I ran the numbers the other day (on the old benefits system), Single man, renting a room, unemployed on JSA. but trying to work in the zero hours economy for minimum wage. I got tired of the messy spreadsheet so deleted it but other than obvious personal pride there is: - An incentive to work 1 hour a week. £5 better off - No incentive to work 2 - 9.3 hours. Benefits are reduced by the same amount as earnings. - An incentive to work 9.4 - 16 hours, Council tax discount/Housing benefit still paid. - No incentive to work the 17th to about the 24th hour. The extra hours cause a big loss of benefits + tax starts to kick in. Was watching a documentary about the home-care crisis, The owner of the company mentioned that women would come and start work, but quite around a month later when they realise they are worse off by working.

24 year old "Millennial' here. Reading this on a phone I paid cash for (used) with £5 monthly giffgaff cancel anytime "goody bag". planning on buying a used car for cash when I finally pass my test. What a load of trash this woman from Grainger is spouting, I'm sure there's plenty of us that waste their money on avacado toast & leased cars but most of us want to own a house. Some of us don't know how to get there yet but who wants to be a tenant in their own land.

A vendor misstating the actual value of a transaction to a valuer/mortgage company, Didn't we used to just call that mortgage fraud? Crazy times, Am I correct in thinking HTB buyers only need a 5% deposit. So I'm guessing the ones receiving a backhander have 0% deposit or worse.